How sheltered was he?

What sort of world had I stumbled into?

I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to tell him. Why would I give up my only hope? But could I lie? Would he believe me?

“It’s a useless cell phone.” I held my breath. “The battery is dead.”

His eyes narrowed, and for a second, I thought for sure he was playing with me. Pretending not to know but knowing full well that I’d activated a locator beacon. But he nodded and scoffed under his breath. “I remember those.” Kicking it across the floor, he added, “Even if it had a charge, it wouldn’t do you any good out here. There’s never been phone reception. Not even in the beginning.”

My mind exploded with questions. What beginning? How long ago was the beginning? If he’d seen a cell phone, that meant he’d had access to technology at some point, even if he lived an almost archaic existence now. And if he had seen things like phones, then why was he living mostly naked in a house consumed by ivy?

Exhaustion suddenly crushed my shoulders.

I was hungry and cold and I wanted to go home. Who cared who this guy was? He was keeping me prisoner, and I was done.

Drawing myself up, I let ice slip into my voice. “Let me go. I want to leave.”

With speed that seemed otherworldly, he grabbed my chin and pressed my head against the stone wall behind me. My bruised neck cried in agony as his fingers dug into my cheeks, locking me in place. His nose almost kissed mine. The tension between us returned a thousandfold as his anger consumed me.

“You’re not allowed to leave.” He kept squeezing me, his eyes almost feverish. “Ever. Do you hear me?”

I’d felt panic before. I’d fallen and broken bones. I’d scaled mountaintops and stood on the edge of the world. I’d suffered grief when my dad died. I’d endured hardships as well as successes. Yet nothing, nothing had prepared me for the undiluted wave of foreboding.

“I can’t stay here.” I grabbed at his wrist, doing my best to get free. “I won’t.”

“You don’t have a choice.” His stare dropped to my mouth. His other hand came up, running his forefinger over my bottom lip. It didn’t matter to him that I struggled. He didn’t notice or care. He inserted the tip of his finger into my mouth.

He groaned.

I bit him.

Hard.

“Fuck.” Ripping his hand back, he snarled, “Are you trying to die?”

“I’m trying to live!” I bared my teeth and rubbed the indents he’d left behind on my cheeks. “Don’t touch me.”

“I can do more than touch you.” He sucked on the finger that I’d bitten, a trace of blood staining his teeth as he hissed, “You walked into my home uninvited. I didn’t seek you out. I didn’t bring you here against your will. This is your fault. Not mine. Your fault that you’ll die in this valley, same as me.” Planting both hands on the stone behind my head, he crushed his body over mine.

His hips collided into me, wedging his erection against my lower belly. He ground against me, ensuring I felt every thick inch. “That is all your fault. I’m trying really fucking hard not to hurt you. I’m doing everything I can to ignore the fact that I have full right to make you do anything I want.”

“You don’t have that right. No one has that right—”

“You gave me that right the moment you stepped into my home.” His voice dropped to a lashing whisper. “I keep reliving the moment I saw your tracks over my threshold. The disbelief that someone had dared to enter without permission. How you were there, bold as fucking be, standing on my stairs, entering my rooms, touching my things.”

His cock throbbed against my stomach. His entire body shuddered as his forehead lodged on mine, keeping my head locked against the wall. “I didn’t summon you. I didn’t want you. But now that you’re here, Christ, it’s hard not to take what you’ve so stupidly given.”

I squirmed and tried to push him off me. It was like pushing granite. “I haven’t given you anything.”

“Are you deaf? I just told you. You gave me everything the second you entered my valley.”

“I did nothing of the sort. Perhaps, you’re the one who’s deaf. I said let me go. I’ll leave. I’ll get out of your home. You won’t have to—”

“Listen to me.” His voice turned black with rage. “I’m not letting you go. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. It’s easy. Just open the door, and I’ll climb away. You’ll never see me again.”

“And why would I do that?” His hips once again rocked into me. My breath caught as he framed my face with his elbows, his nails scratching on the wall by my ears. “You’re mine now. Why would I let you go before knowing how you feel? Why would I let you run back to whoever else is out there? Why would I give you the chance to ruin me?”

Tears glassed my vision. Sweat broke out beneath my windbreaker.

He was too close, too strong, too angry.

His cock never stopped wedging against my belly—an aggressive threat as well as an unwanted link between us.

“Stop. Touching. Me.”

Dropping his nose, he sniffed my throat. “It’s taking every inch of self-control not to do more than just touch you.” He shuddered and inhaled me again. “Fuck, it’s taking everything that I am.”

My hands scrambled for purchase on his chest, clawing at his scarred skin. I couldn’t push him off me. I hated that I couldn’t move him. I’d always been strong—far stronger than many girls—yet shoving him did nothing. Nothing!

Furious frustration rippled down my spine. “Stop!”

His answer was a gentle lick of his tongue from my collarbone to my jaw.

I shivered and fought. “I. Said. Stop!”

“I should’ve killed you.” He pulled back. His eyes snared mine, too close to fully focus. “It would’ve been better for both of us.”

“Please—” I turned my head to the side. I didn’t want this. Despite the weapon I’d acknowledged and the belief that I could play tricks to earn my freedom, I knew now I wasn’t equipped.

I wasn’t brave enough to use sex as a way free. Sex was a landmine. Sex with him would eradicate all my rights, my freedoms, and my sanities.

If he took from me, he’d take everything.

He’d steal every scrap of who I was and leave me nothing in return.

His hips thrust against my belly.

He groaned through parted lips. His entire face went slack as if the sensation completely undid him.

Having him take pleasure from me without my consent—having him use me when I’d said no made my skin crawl and my heart race and my bruised throat throb with injustice. “Stop.”

He grunted as his hips thrust deeper, driving my spine into the stone wall. “Fuck, I can’t.” It was as if something snapped inside him. “I can’t.” He drove against me again. “I won’t.”

He sounded wretched and afraid.

A direct contradiction to his overpowerment and abuse.

“God, you feel—” Throwing his head back, he thrust again, rolling his hips, forcing every hard inch of himself against me. “Oh, Christ.” He spasmed and let go, driving again and again, short and vicious, imprinting his heat, his need.

“Fuuuuck.”

He rutted a final time into me, his body bowing tight, his breath catching. His groan sounded eerily similar to the suffering creature from last night. The same animal that’d woken me up and made me wish to seek it out and put it out of its misery.

A sound that was bruised and broken.

He jerked as an orgasm shook him. He rode out the waves of pleasure.

I didn’t look at him.

Couldn’t stomach watching him come apart.

I’d met him when he was naked. And now, he climaxed while fully clothed. An enigma. A riddle. A stranger I was too afraid to figure out.

When he grunted a final time, his body switched from aggressive to almost apologetic. Stumbling away from me, he dragged both hands over his face.